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Heritage Stories

Heritage Stories

The gold helmet of Olympic champion Greg Van Avermaet - © KOERS. Cycling Museum, Roeselare

Greg Van Avermaet's Golden Helmet

Anyone who watched cycling on TV between 2016 and 2020 often saw a rider wearing a striking gold helmet in the peloton. The rider wearing that unique helmet was the Flemish cyclist Greg Van Avermaet. He had earned it through an exceptional performance. At the 2016 Olympic Games in

A "Voil Jeanet" from Aalst - © Wikimedia Commons

Aalst Carnival

In Aalst, you’ll find the annual highlight of the Flemish carnival. People parade through the streets in costume. Everyone eats and drinks to their heart’s content—alcohol for the adults and candy for the children. An ordinary man is crowned prince. With the help of masks

A team of three horses pulling a plow, ca. 1935–1960 - © CAG, Paul De Brauwer Collection - cagnet.be

The Brabant Draft Horse

Horsepower is, not coincidentally, a common unit of measurement for expressing an engine’s power. When James Watt developed the steam engine at the end of the 18th century, he compared the power of his machine to that of the primary source of traction at the time: the horse.

The Dendermonde Mammoth - © City Museum, Dendermonde

The Mammoth of Dendermonde

A crate of beer. That’s what it took to convince Hugo De Potter, a crane operator, to help retrieve a giant mammoth skull from a sand quarry in Dendermonde in the late 1960s. Today, that skull completes the mounted mammoth at the Vleeshuismuseum in Dendermonde. The Dendermonde mammoth is not the only piece of animal heritage in Flanders. Countless museums

Kempens chickens - Living Heritage Center - sle.be

The Kempens Kieken

Just a chicken? The Kempens kieken isn’t just any chicken—it’s a succulent piece of Flemish heritage with a history dating back millennia. The story of the Kempens kieken begins in Asia, around 3000 BCE. That’s when people first began raising chickens, partly for their meat and eggs.

Children in costume singing for Saint Martin's Day, 2010 - mechelenblogt.be, photo by Jan Smets

Singing on Saint Martin

Halloween has been gaining popularity in Flanders over the past few decades. At the end of October, you increasingly see hollowed-out pumpkins with lights inside them. Children go door to door in costume to collect candy. In its current form, Halloween originated in America, but it is originally a European, Catholic

Portrait of Robrecht van Béthune in the Counts' Chapel in Kortrijk - © Wikimedia Commons

The Lion of Flanders

*The Lion of Flanders* or *The Battle of the Golden Spurs* is a novel by Hendrik Conscience. The book was published in 1838. The Antwerp-based author drew on historical sources and folk tales to tell a fictional story set in the early 14th century. The backdrop is the historical conflict